At the very first ad agency I ever worked at, back in 1993, we had one computer for the entire agency. It sat on a rollabout cart that we... well, rolled about. It was mostly in Tom's office or by my desk. It didn't have Windows, and we mostly used it for word processing (can't remember which program we had), and Lotus 1, 2, 3, which was great for media buying spreadsheets. (During lunch one day I grabbed the computer, taught myself Lotus and redid the entire spreadsheet for a major buy, saving it in another location. That was when I started buying media, because I vastly improved the plan some of the guys had spent most of the week on.)

When we needed type set, we sent out for it. (The boss, Joe Kidd, was an art director. He sometimes used press-on letters, or hand lettered things.) We had spray mount and X-acto knives throughout the place and you could barely walk on Joe's floor for the years of built-up spray mount.

Near the end, I sometimes set some type on the computer for Joe, and we'd cut it out and glue it onto the layout.

Anyway, years later, as I started doing more and more design work, I started teaching myself more and more and buying a lot of books to learn from. I quickly learned to check the copyright dates of the books since even slightly older ones would be way out-of-date and pretty irrelevant (for instance, they'd talk about how to put together a page with spray mount, instead of on a computer). (I've also taken a number of design workshops and seminars, as well as a few computer classes and copywriting seminars, all depending on whatever employers wanted me to know more about. (It was funny in one Photoshop WOW! class when a coworker with a lot more design background had to keep asking me questions during the class so she could figure out what was going on to keep up with me.)

And now, as I get closer and closer to doing my own Web site (I've done a few for some folks through the years, but nothing too complicated), I'm digging out any books I have on Web stuff to refresh my mind on what they contain—and I'm realizing how quickly Web stuff goes out of date. Book on Macromedia Flash? Yeah, not really applicable, especially not with all the Creative Suite 3 books I've gotten to go with my new software (Macromedia was bought out by Adobe a few years ago). So just like regular designing and typesetting have leaped ahead, so has Web design, and now I'm flipping through the books to see which have anything that is useful today, and which should be gotten rid of. And, of the ones I'm keeping (if any), I'm reviewing relevant bits to incorporate into my brain for my site.

I'm also getting rid of some of the really old design books and computer books. It's amazing to me how quickly we're moving along in these arenas. (BTW: All of my design study even helps with my typesetting, since I can explain the concepts behind a bunch of things, like why serif fonts are best to typeset books with (at least the body copy), why you use one space after periods these days, and what the largest font size one would like to use for body copy is.)

BTW: I also did quite a bit of copywriting at my first ad agency all those years ago. Before I'd taken the job there, a few agencies had asked me about doing freelance radio work for them, since I have such a good grasp of dialogue (I was always pretty much like, "Well, um, yeah. See the line on my resumé about being a playwright? Kinda helps with the dialogue bits.")

All in all, it's making me feel old. But it is, in a way, kinda cool to have a bunch of hands-on experience with how things have moved ahead through the years.